Incompetence and conspiracy theories meet a deadly virus: Will history repeat itself, or will we face an even deadlier disaster with unprepared leaders at the helm?
Trump is just mind boggling to me, as well as the people surrounding him. The utter lack of decency any if these people possess is what scares me most of all. When I talked to voters and did everything I could to get out the vote for HARRIS, I said that this was an election between kindness and meanness, curiosity and open mindedness vs ignorance and superstition. We already see who, and what, won.
A real Eye Opener this morning ☕ Thom, there's so much Disinformation regarding COVID yet to this day?! If we are hit with another variant of this deadly virus,no way would we be prepared. Hopefully all the research,under the Biden administration, will pull us threw for the time being, but If Project 2025 is put in play,all bets are off. I'll be stocking up on masks and hand sanitizer just to be on the safe side. Great article, and will reStack ASAP 🙏💯👍
I was in EMS when AIDS came on the scene. There was so much we did not know and we took every precaution we could. Thank goodness, science prevailed and it is no longer the death sentence it once was and victims are no longer treated with disgust and fear. I was horrified at the reaction to the Covid virus and lost all trust in our leader(s) to handle any crisis. Far too many people died who did not have to and millions are compromised for the rest of their lives.. What should have been a medical/scientific concern quickly became a political talking point. I fear that pandemic will be nothing compared to what we are facing in the near future.
Of course, the Trump administration will be even less prepared for a pandemic than last time with a leadership full of science-denying antivaxxer worm-brained idiots who perhaps think epidemics are caused by space lasers or something. His AG should be well into prosecuting one of the worlds leading authorities on infectious disease (Fauci), and the DOGE Boys will have halved NIH's research budget by then - so forget about a fast vaccination like last time.
D. Trump's only talent is BS. You cannot BS a virus.
COVID, or rather his "management" of it, defeated him in 2020.
Yes, mother nature will deliver us from this plague with a plague of her own. I am only concerned that she will take down a lot more than DT and his MAGA wave with her wrath.
People voted this lunatic back to the White House because they "were better off four years ago", and I wonder how more than half the nation got afflicted with memory loss. There was incompetence, as well as willfull neglect, when 45's team ignored the solid and effective response guidance prepared by the outgoing Obama administration.
I vote to follow Thom's advice to stock up on supplies, both for preparedness and arbitrage if another round of tariffs and trade wars snarls supply chains and hikes prices. Get your flu and COVID shots too before one of his clown car passengers takes over the FDA.
Funny thing about great minds for just a few days ago it dawned on me that this was the first general election since the Covid pandemic. It seems, at least to me, it was a hundred years ago. The damage that was done to the society is incalculable in terms of long range effects. Rites of passage, from visiting newborn members of a family, to proms, to funerals were thwarted. People were unable to say goodbye to loved ones. Graduations were cancelled. Very, very devastating in ways I often wonder if the rest of the populace realizes.
Throw in two presidential impeachments, in which the target/president was acquitted, and impeachment of the head of "Homeland Security," (three impeachments in less than 100 months), "rigged" elections (claimed by both parties of the political duopoly) January 6th, so-called "Black Lives Matter" and its impact (or lack thereof), Black People eating house pets, multiple presidential candidate assassination "attempts," the ONLY former president to become president again since Grover Cleveland and the nation has been battered in historical ways.
In boxing, one learns to "kill the body, and the head will die." The jab is the weapon; you keep throwing it and body shots until your opponent is distracted and flustered...then you lower the boom to the head (the right hand/power shot). Chances are, he will meet the canvas.
Another pandemic is quite a possibility. However, as the next 24 months pass, we will soon learn that a pandemic is the very least of problems to contend with. The stage will be dominated by global events that most of us cannot fathom. Just as we could not fathom Covid and its consequences.
Your analogy may be too true. I was thinking that if I was Putin my timing would be invade Poland the Baltics the day Trump is inaugurated. He wouldn't have a clue what to do.
Could another pandemic spare us somehow from dictatorship? Which would be worse, losing millions to a pandemic, several of which might be top government leaders, or dictatorship? I'd say it might be a toss-up.
As we get out of the 5 year cycle of this round at the start of 2025 it would be ironic to begin another round at this time. I hope we do not have another cycle of masking. I would really like to see a movie at the big screen and be mask free again.
Let's hear the truth: How many people died from blood clots and other "side-effects" of the COVID "vaccines?" My mother, who was "fully" vaccinated, updates and all, still died from COVID complications. I was never vaccinated, except naturally, because I HAD COVID at least twice, and experienced symptoms of "Long Covid" for over 9 months. JUST THE FACTS, Please!
The facts in our part of the world — my 97 year old mother and 94 year old father got all the vaccines {my PhD-in-molecular-biology brother-in-law, who had worked on mRNA technologies way back when they were brand new, gave us EXCELLENT and trustworthy advice, and we all took proper precautions}. No one in our house got COVID until last year, when we caught the newest strain before we were vaccinated for it … We had mild cases, and even my father, who was 96, came through well, with some residual immune strength from the older vaccines. My Mom passed away from heart and kidney issues she’d had for decades, but she nearly got to 100 … she had ZERO connection to COVID through the whole pandemic. None of us have “long Covid” — and we’ve gotten the newest vaccine, too.
So, THAT Is ALL ANECDOTAL — one family’s experience. Statistics do not apply to individuals. What “proves” the efficacy of the vaccines and the means of pandemic control are the large scale numbers, and those bear out the fact that the vaccines are effective and save lives. Individual results may vary — we take that into consideration and take pains to head off those bad events — but the overall best policy is to listen to the advice of people who actually know what they’re taking about, and do what you can to head off the unexpected.
Thank goodness for PhDs!!! and your elucidation of the personal vs universal.
Very painful for those who have suffered from the vaccines to accept that their body's side effects or rejection experience is unique. I remember there was data out about blood clotting on an early Johnson & Johnson vaccine that was taken off the market and revised, and that certain diseases in individuals may cause that type of reaction.
PRECISElY, Lynn .. medicine is an inexact science, and bodies are all similar, but not identical … AND even our DNA is a bit edgy, with genes being “turned on” or “turned off” by various epigenetic factors from the moment egg meets sperm. I wish people understood this just a LITTLE bit better — we can use information and advice and do what we can to stay healthy…but we do not have guarantees, and each of us is our own little bag of chemicals that we’re trying to keep going ..
Good luck to all of us .. pay attention, seek GOOD advice, and find knowledgeable people you trust. {I personally do not trust a guy who thinks it was funny to stage a fake accident in Central Park with a dead bear and a bicycle. Nor do I think the guy has good judgement who strapped a rotten whale head to his car and drove it down a national highway, shedding stinking rotted whale flesh on everything in his path.
Hmmmph. Nope. Not taking medical advice from that jamoke.
PROVE IT! Everything I just said is the truth! My whole family had symptoms of COVID in February, BEFORE they even knew what it was! They first IDed it in March or April. I later "tested positive."
There were some issues with blood clots, especially with an early vaccine that was distributed with warnings for certain groups of people. I believe one was taken off the market, too, but I did not confirm that. The mRNA vaccines are very different front the old types we’ve become accustomed to. That’s why they were able to accelerate the creation of them in the first place …
Thank you. I don't doubt that there may have been some reason to investigate a connection with blood clots, which I believe are not uncommon. The problem is that using that as evidence that herd immunity is a credible strategy or that vaccines are too risky, especially when floating the nonsense about the other options that were being peddled by the charlatans, is just one more shot at discrediting the science and the scientists and an excuse to give Trump credibility which he definitely does not merit.
I never said they didn't. It's not an either/or -- all or nothing! Where did the blood clots come from? Don't tell me they didn't exist, unless you're part of the cover-up -- the "truth deniers."
OHHHHHH, we’d all better stop eating food!!! Did you know there are TONS of people in the world whose bodies can’t handle food, and their blood sugar levels are disrupted and sometimes they DIE.
FOOD KILLS.
{You need to get a handle on your data, Mr. Cantrell.}
"Food" doesn't kill. But eating too much of it killed my father. I don't have any data! THAT'S the problem. They're not telling us how many people died of blood clots and other side-effects. Why the cover-up? And Ivermectin DID help in some cases: I've heard the "testimonies." Just the truth please.
I remember Trump telling the media that he thought people who wore masks did not like him. Probably one of the few statement he made that was true. Now he wants RFK, Jr. to lead health efforts of the US. This was all foreseeable during the election process and America still elected him.
Trump is just mind boggling to me, as well as the people surrounding him. The utter lack of decency any if these people possess is what scares me most of all. When I talked to voters and did everything I could to get out the vote for HARRIS, I said that this was an election between kindness and meanness, curiosity and open mindedness vs ignorance and superstition. We already see who, and what, won.
A real Eye Opener this morning ☕ Thom, there's so much Disinformation regarding COVID yet to this day?! If we are hit with another variant of this deadly virus,no way would we be prepared. Hopefully all the research,under the Biden administration, will pull us threw for the time being, but If Project 2025 is put in play,all bets are off. I'll be stocking up on masks and hand sanitizer just to be on the safe side. Great article, and will reStack ASAP 🙏💯👍
I was in EMS when AIDS came on the scene. There was so much we did not know and we took every precaution we could. Thank goodness, science prevailed and it is no longer the death sentence it once was and victims are no longer treated with disgust and fear. I was horrified at the reaction to the Covid virus and lost all trust in our leader(s) to handle any crisis. Far too many people died who did not have to and millions are compromised for the rest of their lives.. What should have been a medical/scientific concern quickly became a political talking point. I fear that pandemic will be nothing compared to what we are facing in the near future.
Of course, the Trump administration will be even less prepared for a pandemic than last time with a leadership full of science-denying antivaxxer worm-brained idiots who perhaps think epidemics are caused by space lasers or something. His AG should be well into prosecuting one of the worlds leading authorities on infectious disease (Fauci), and the DOGE Boys will have halved NIH's research budget by then - so forget about a fast vaccination like last time.
D. Trump's only talent is BS. You cannot BS a virus.
COVID, or rather his "management" of it, defeated him in 2020.
Yes, mother nature will deliver us from this plague with a plague of her own. I am only concerned that she will take down a lot more than DT and his MAGA wave with her wrath.
D.
I heard some months ago that the Finnish were getting bird flu shots. It sounds like those might not be effective for whatever is really coming?
And .....whenever I think Trump is bad, Jared K. tops him in lack of decency and in lacking any kind of moral standard to live by.
In UK, people over 60 years old (maybe 65 mot sure) can get covid and flu vaccines free of charge on NHS. Thank you!
https://wapo.st/3AVZj6p
The above link is to a WAPO article telling about bird flu being found in raw milk.
So the next pandemic could be a glass or two away!
Probably unlikely as few people drink raw milk unless they have a dead worm in their brain.
You're a lighthouse, Thom. Thank you.
People voted this lunatic back to the White House because they "were better off four years ago", and I wonder how more than half the nation got afflicted with memory loss. There was incompetence, as well as willfull neglect, when 45's team ignored the solid and effective response guidance prepared by the outgoing Obama administration.
I vote to follow Thom's advice to stock up on supplies, both for preparedness and arbitrage if another round of tariffs and trade wars snarls supply chains and hikes prices. Get your flu and COVID shots too before one of his clown car passengers takes over the FDA.
Except for the few elderly in Seattle at the onset, COVID 19 did us a favor by culling the population of the pig headed, hateful believers
RFK said he wouldn't thwart the development of vaccines, just not make them mandatory.
Tomorrow I go in for my 8th COVID booster and next month for the latest flu.shot
I live in the country and only go to town to buy groceries,pick up mail and packages and to the Medical center. So I feel pretty safe.
Funny thing about great minds for just a few days ago it dawned on me that this was the first general election since the Covid pandemic. It seems, at least to me, it was a hundred years ago. The damage that was done to the society is incalculable in terms of long range effects. Rites of passage, from visiting newborn members of a family, to proms, to funerals were thwarted. People were unable to say goodbye to loved ones. Graduations were cancelled. Very, very devastating in ways I often wonder if the rest of the populace realizes.
Throw in two presidential impeachments, in which the target/president was acquitted, and impeachment of the head of "Homeland Security," (three impeachments in less than 100 months), "rigged" elections (claimed by both parties of the political duopoly) January 6th, so-called "Black Lives Matter" and its impact (or lack thereof), Black People eating house pets, multiple presidential candidate assassination "attempts," the ONLY former president to become president again since Grover Cleveland and the nation has been battered in historical ways.
In boxing, one learns to "kill the body, and the head will die." The jab is the weapon; you keep throwing it and body shots until your opponent is distracted and flustered...then you lower the boom to the head (the right hand/power shot). Chances are, he will meet the canvas.
Another pandemic is quite a possibility. However, as the next 24 months pass, we will soon learn that a pandemic is the very least of problems to contend with. The stage will be dominated by global events that most of us cannot fathom. Just as we could not fathom Covid and its consequences.
The right hand is coming.
Your analogy may be too true. I was thinking that if I was Putin my timing would be invade Poland the Baltics the day Trump is inaugurated. He wouldn't have a clue what to do.
Can't look outwards...
Until you think N-Words.
Add this to the grinding effects of climate change on the economy and you have a very toxic mix for economic well being.
Could another pandemic spare us somehow from dictatorship? Which would be worse, losing millions to a pandemic, several of which might be top government leaders, or dictatorship? I'd say it might be a toss-up.
As we get out of the 5 year cycle of this round at the start of 2025 it would be ironic to begin another round at this time. I hope we do not have another cycle of masking. I would really like to see a movie at the big screen and be mask free again.
Let's hear the truth: How many people died from blood clots and other "side-effects" of the COVID "vaccines?" My mother, who was "fully" vaccinated, updates and all, still died from COVID complications. I was never vaccinated, except naturally, because I HAD COVID at least twice, and experienced symptoms of "Long Covid" for over 9 months. JUST THE FACTS, Please!
The facts in our part of the world — my 97 year old mother and 94 year old father got all the vaccines {my PhD-in-molecular-biology brother-in-law, who had worked on mRNA technologies way back when they were brand new, gave us EXCELLENT and trustworthy advice, and we all took proper precautions}. No one in our house got COVID until last year, when we caught the newest strain before we were vaccinated for it … We had mild cases, and even my father, who was 96, came through well, with some residual immune strength from the older vaccines. My Mom passed away from heart and kidney issues she’d had for decades, but she nearly got to 100 … she had ZERO connection to COVID through the whole pandemic. None of us have “long Covid” — and we’ve gotten the newest vaccine, too.
So, THAT Is ALL ANECDOTAL — one family’s experience. Statistics do not apply to individuals. What “proves” the efficacy of the vaccines and the means of pandemic control are the large scale numbers, and those bear out the fact that the vaccines are effective and save lives. Individual results may vary — we take that into consideration and take pains to head off those bad events — but the overall best policy is to listen to the advice of people who actually know what they’re taking about, and do what you can to head off the unexpected.
Onward and upward.
Thank goodness for PhDs!!! and your elucidation of the personal vs universal.
Very painful for those who have suffered from the vaccines to accept that their body's side effects or rejection experience is unique. I remember there was data out about blood clotting on an early Johnson & Johnson vaccine that was taken off the market and revised, and that certain diseases in individuals may cause that type of reaction.
PRECISElY, Lynn .. medicine is an inexact science, and bodies are all similar, but not identical … AND even our DNA is a bit edgy, with genes being “turned on” or “turned off” by various epigenetic factors from the moment egg meets sperm. I wish people understood this just a LITTLE bit better — we can use information and advice and do what we can to stay healthy…but we do not have guarantees, and each of us is our own little bag of chemicals that we’re trying to keep going ..
Good luck to all of us .. pay attention, seek GOOD advice, and find knowledgeable people you trust. {I personally do not trust a guy who thinks it was funny to stage a fake accident in Central Park with a dead bear and a bicycle. Nor do I think the guy has good judgement who strapped a rotten whale head to his car and drove it down a national highway, shedding stinking rotted whale flesh on everything in his path.
Hmmmph. Nope. Not taking medical advice from that jamoke.
You are a font of disinformation.
PROVE IT! Everything I just said is the truth! My whole family had symptoms of COVID in February, BEFORE they even knew what it was! They first IDed it in March or April. I later "tested positive."
Actually, you bear the burden.... Plenty of proof that vaccines save lives.
I agree completely with you on this. Blood clots, my foot.
There were some issues with blood clots, especially with an early vaccine that was distributed with warnings for certain groups of people. I believe one was taken off the market, too, but I did not confirm that. The mRNA vaccines are very different front the old types we’ve become accustomed to. That’s why they were able to accelerate the creation of them in the first place …
Thank you. I don't doubt that there may have been some reason to investigate a connection with blood clots, which I believe are not uncommon. The problem is that using that as evidence that herd immunity is a credible strategy or that vaccines are too risky, especially when floating the nonsense about the other options that were being peddled by the charlatans, is just one more shot at discrediting the science and the scientists and an excuse to give Trump credibility which he definitely does not merit.
I never said they didn't. It's not an either/or -- all or nothing! Where did the blood clots come from? Don't tell me they didn't exist, unless you're part of the cover-up -- the "truth deniers."
OHHHHHH, we’d all better stop eating food!!! Did you know there are TONS of people in the world whose bodies can’t handle food, and their blood sugar levels are disrupted and sometimes they DIE.
FOOD KILLS.
{You need to get a handle on your data, Mr. Cantrell.}
"Food" doesn't kill. But eating too much of it killed my father. I don't have any data! THAT'S the problem. They're not telling us how many people died of blood clots and other side-effects. Why the cover-up? And Ivermectin DID help in some cases: I've heard the "testimonies." Just the truth please.
I remember Trump telling the media that he thought people who wore masks did not like him. Probably one of the few statement he made that was true. Now he wants RFK, Jr. to lead health efforts of the US. This was all foreseeable during the election process and America still elected him.
Let's hope the the Governors of the still-sane states are working together to deal with a now dangerously corrupt Federal Government.